


Hole-in-One

by ignipes



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-20
Updated: 2008-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer is the worst mini-golf player in the entire world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hole-in-One

There was a little wooden bridge arched over the stagnant water hazard on the ninth hole. The bridge was bright red, the only thing at the Krazy Karts Family Fun Center with a fresh coat of paint, and it made an ominous _boooooooing-pop_ noise when Brendon bounced on it.

"Stop that," Spencer said. He set his pink ball on the rubber mat and lined up his putter. "You're ruining my concentration."

Brendon bounced again. "Dude, concentration won't help you."

"Yeah," Spencer agreed with a sigh. "Probably not." He tapped the ball and sent it slowly and crookedly down the strip of tattered artificial turf.

"I mean," Brendon said, "it's actually kind of incredible how bad you are at this game."

Spencer nodded and pushed his hair back from his face. "I know. I totally suck."

He hit the ball again, and Brendon watched in fascination as it curved gently around the three PVC pipes that dropped to the lower level of the hole. It really was amazing how somebody usually possessed of significantly more than the normal amount of hand-eye coordination could miss such easy shots.

"I think there's a force field around your ball making it defy the laws of the physics," Brendon told him. "It's completely awesome."

"I've always sucked," Spencer said. There was an unmistakable note of pride in his voice. "Even when I was like eight and everybody else also sucked, I was the kid who lost a million balls every time. Jenny Dickinson got so mad at me for holding up her birthday she pushed me into a slimy pond. You want to take your turn?"

"Nah, keep going." Brendon bounced on the bridge for a few seconds, briefly considered making fun of Spencer for getting beat up by an eight-year-old girl, then dropped his feet flat to the boards and frowned. "If you hate it so much, why'd you drag me over here?"

It was their first night off in forever, and Brendon had been determinedly not feeling sorry for himself for his blatant lack of cool rock star plans when Spencer grabbed his arm and said, "Let's get out of here." They tumbled off the bus and escaped across the highway without anyone seeing them; they were so practiced at sneaking away they even started humming the _Mission: Impossible_ theme at the same time.

"I mean," Brendon went on uneasily, "if you're not..."

"I don't hate it," Spencer said. He tapped the ball again--this time it actually dropped into one of the PVC pipes--and straightened to look at Brendon. "I'm just really bad at it. It's actually my favorite sport in the whole world. Except caber tossing."

Brendon couldn't quite read Spencer's expression, but he didn't think he was lying. "I happen to know you have never tossed a caber in your entire life, Spencer Smith."

"So? It's still my favorite. All sports should involve guys in kilts throwing telephone poles around for no apparent reason. And anyway," Spencer added, pointing his club at the lurid neon sign blinking over their heads, "even if I did hate mini-golf, who can resist the siren song of a Krazy Karts Family Fun Center?"

"Everybody else, apparently. We're the only people here," Brendon said. (It was good thing, too, because Spencer was such an awful mini-golfer he took like twenty minutes on each hole.) The teenage girl behind the desk had been stunned into silence when they walked up and paid two dollars each for a round, but when Brendon signed the blank scorecard she shyly held out, she blushed beet-red and whispered, "Oh my god, you're so totally my favorite." Spencer laughed about that through the first three holes.

"We're special," Spencer said.

"Of course we are. To us, the Krazy Kart Family Fun Center is a beacon in the night, guiding weary travelers toward bounties of family fun." Brendon paused for dramatic effect, hand over heart, then jumped off the bridge and landed on the ratty green. "Hey, why hasn't your ball come out yet?"

"Come out where?"

"Down there. Isn't it supposed to?"

Their heads bumped together as they both leaned to peer into the pipe.

"I don't see anything," Brendon said. Spencer's hair was tickling his face, and he exhaled sharply to blow it away. "That color pink should totally glow in the dark."

"It ate my ball." Spencer sounded a little bit insulted, like he couldn't believe a mini-golf hole would do such a thing. "The pipe _ate_ my _ball_."

"Maybe it likes eating balls," Brendon said.

Spencer looked at him.

Brendon held out all of ten seconds before he cracked up. "It _definitely_ likes eating balls."

Spencer poked his club into the pipe. "Look, whatever this stupid pipe wants to do in the privacy of its own home is its own business, but right now it's supposed to be working, not eating balls."

"It has urges, Spencer. It's just wired that way. You can't blame it."

"Yeah, I can." Spencer set his club down, dropped to the ground, and stuck his arm into the pipe. "I'll show this greedy fucker."

"Sure, you show it." Brendon watched for a few seconds. "You're going to teach it a lesson by fisting it?"

Spencer snorted and glanced up, a fringe of hair falling over his eyes. "Never fails, especially on the first date."

"I don't think that kind of behavior is appropriate for a Family Fun Center."

"Depends on the family."

"Depends on _your_ family."

"Oh, god, please leave my family out of all discussions about lewd public sex acts."

"If you insist," Brendon said, "but only because your family is scary and they're all secret lunatics." Brendon had been convinced of this ever since the first time he'd eaten dinner with Spencer's family, when halfway through the meal he'd looked across the table and realized that Mr. and Mrs. Smith were creating mashed potato sculptures in the shape of hybrid mutant woodland creatures while their children carried on with the meal as though nothing unusual was happening. ("Well, duh, how do you think Spencer got the way he is?" Ryan said the one time Brendon mentioned it. "The scariest part is how they all honestly believe they're so normal. You should ask Mr. Smith to see his barbed wire collection sometime." In retrospect, the Smith family's eccentricities did explain a lot, up to and including why nothing Ryan did ever phased Spencer in the least.)

"I can't, um." Spencer frowned. He shifted around but didn't pull his arm from the pipe.

"Can't what?"

"I think I'm... I'm _stuck_."

"You're stuck?"

"My hand. I can't get it out."

Brendon bit his lip to keep from laughing. "Has this, uh, has this this ever happened on a first date before?"

"It's not fucking funny," Spencer snapped. "My fucking hand is... _ouch_ , there's something fucking _sharp_ and I can't, fuck, I can't get it--"

"Whoa, whoa, hey, stop--dude, calm down." Brendon knelt beside Spencer and touched his shoulder gingerly. "If it's sharp, maybe you shouldn't pull--"

"Well, I can't fucking stay here all night, can I? I'm just gonna--" Spencer squeezed his eyes shut, and Brendon felt the muscles of his shoulder tense. "I'm gonna try and _aaaaargh!_ " The words gave way to an unintelligible scream.

"Oh my god, oh my god. Don't move anymore, okay, just don't--Spencer?" Brendon broke off abruptly and scowled. "Spencer, are you _laughing_?"

"I can't--" Spencer was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. "I can't believe you fell for that," he gasped. "Did you think--dude, there's no _pipe monster_ here."

Brendon jabbed his finger at Spencer. "I didn't _fall for it_ , you asshole. I was just being a concerned friend. I thought you _maimed_ your _hand_."

He punctuated each word with a hard poke in Spencer's chest. Spencer, still laughing, grabbed his wrist, and Brendon took that as an invitation for a full-on full-body tackle--which was, granted, a little hard to do when they were both already on the ground, but he wasn't about to let that stop him. Spencer was strong but he was already at a disadvantage, so the match ended with Spencer flat on his back and Brendon sitting triumphantly on his chest.

"You're a bad person," Brendon said. He calmly slapped away a sneaky hand when Spencer tried to tickle him. "You shouldn't make jokes about being maimed during obscene public sex acts."

"You weigh a ton." Spencer tried to push Brendon off, but it was a half-hearted shove. "Stop trying to crush me. Or handicap me."

"Yeah, that's what's happening. I'm scared you're going to win." Brendon made himself comfortable on Spencer's chest and reached into his pocket. He licked the tip of the tiny pencil and examined the scorecard. "You're thirty-seven over par, and I'm three under par. I'm not really good at math, but I'm pretty sure that means I'm totally kicking your ass."

"For now," Spencer said. He stopped trying to dislodge Brendon and started trying to balance his putter on the bridge of his nose. "You always fall apart on the back nine."

It was true, but only because the windmills and waterwheels were usually on the back nine. "Not this time," Brendon declared. "This time, victory will be mine. It's too bad Ryan and Jon were too lame to come watch you get crushed in defeat."

"I didn't invite them."

"You didn't--oh." Brendon looked down at Spencer. "Why not?"

Spencer scrunched up his face, going cross-eyed staring at the putter balanced precariously on his nose, and said nothing.

It wasn't a very informative expression, but Brendon was good at deciphering Spencer. "I didn't... You didn't say. I mean, if it bothers you. I didn't know it bothered you."

"It's not." Spencer hesitated until Brendon swiped the putter away, then he sighed. "I like seeing Ryan happy."

There were a lot of things Brendon could say to that, but he only waited for Spencer to go on.

"I like seeing Ryan happy," Spencer said, "but that doesn't mean that listening to a rambling forty-minute... _whatever_ about whether Jon's beard is scratchy like a porcupine or soft like a lamb is my idea of a good time." He reached for his putter but dropped his hand without protest when Brendon held it out of reach. "Well, sometimes it is. But the rest of the time, I mean, if I don't have a video camera to catch all the crazy shit for future blackmail, it's kind of pointless."

"Yeah." Thinking of all the excellent footage they had in their collection of Unbelievably Stupid Things Ryan Does While High made Brendon smile. "That clip of the Jabberwocky thing will get us millions when we sell it to _E! True Hollywood Story_ in twenty years."

"Then we can buy a private island and retire in style," Spencer said.

"And hire mad scientists to build us robots," Brendon added. It was an important part of their long-term retirement plan.

Spencer nodded in agreement. "Robots and rocket launchers."

"But not for shooting birds."

"No. For shooting coconuts."

"Evil coconut motherfuckers," Brendon snarled. He slashed Spencer's putter like a sword, but the club slipped from his hand and skittered across the sidewalk into the flower bed on the other side, decapitating a few innocent flowers in its path. "Oh. Oops?"

Spencer laughed, big and loud, and Brendon pitched forward and slid to the ground. He flung one arm around Spencer's neck, pressed a playful kiss to his cheek and said, "That's why I love you, Spence. You understand what an unholy terror coconuts are."

"Unholy and evil," Spencer said. He didn't shove Brendon away, and he didn't say anything for a long moment. "It bothers you, though."

"What, coconuts?"

"No, just... I mean, they're not doing it on purpose. They're not--I know you feel left out, but it's not, they're not--"

"I know," Brendon said quickly. It wasn't like that, he knew it wasn't. It wasn't Ryan and Jon's he got an all too familiar unwanted-little-brother vibe whenever they invited him along to whatever they were doing. "It's fine. It's not... Wait." Brendon pushed himself up with one arm so he could look down at Spencer. "Is that why you dragged me over here?" He couldn't decide whether to be hurt or insulted, so he settled on a bit of both. "You feel sorry for me and don't want me to feel _left out_?"

Spencer rolled his eyes so hard Brendon thought he might sprain something. "No, dickface. I dragged you over here because I like hanging out with you."

Brendon narrowed his eyes. "Really?"

"Well, that, and just in case I needed somebody to rescue me from the pipe monster on the ninth hole."

"Oh." Brendon held onto his righteous indignation for about thirty more seconds, then shrugged it away. "Okay. I like hanging out with you too. I mean. You know." He cringed inwardly, because he hadn't really been aiming for a heartfelt middle school moment, but Spencer didn't seem to notice.

"And hanging out _on_ me too," Spencer said. "Can you let go of me now, please? I think my ball is a lost cause, so you can take your turn."

"We both have to use my club now." Brendon stood up, then reached down to give Spencer a hand. "I used yours to kill the flowers."

"Good," Spencer said. "I didn't like the way they were looking at me." He looked around, turning his head slowly from side to side, his expression thoughtful. He was standing very close to Brendon, still holding Brendon's hand.

"Um, Spencer? The flowers aren't actually out to get you."

Spencer made a noise of amusement, and when he looked back at Brendon he was smiling slyly. "Hey," he said. "You want to know something?"

"A secret?"

"Maybe."

"Yeah? What is--"

Spencer leaned forward and cut him off with a kiss. It wasn't a playful kiss, or a silly kiss, or a joking kiss. It wasn't anything like the way they usually goofed off. It was warm and sure and a little awkward and _definitely_ a little demanding and Spencer's hands were moving on Brendon's arms, the barest whisper of a touch, and Spencer's teeth were tugging at Brendon's lower lip and Brendon's mind was skipping from the frozen shock of _whoa, hey there, kiss_ to thinking he should maybe respond or move or breathe or kiss Spencer back or _something_ , but Spencer was already pulling away.

"You are so totally my favorite," Spencer said quietly. Then his gaze drifted away from Brendon's as he spotted something over Brendon's shoulder. "Hey! My ball came out!"

And he was gone, taking a wild leap down to the lower level, where his pink ball was now resting a mere six inches from the hole.

"Go ahead, take your shot," Spencer said.

Brendon could still feel Spencer's fingers on his arms.

"Right."

And his lips, _god_ , he could still feel Spencer's lips on his.

"Brendon? Maybe take your shot sometime tonight?"

Brendon swallowed and licked his lips. "Right."

He turned on his heels and did not look over his shoulder. He didn't look until he was standing at the rubber mat that served as a tee, bending down to put his purple ball in place, wondering why his club seemed so weird, realizing he was holding it upside down.

He flipped the putter around, lined up the head with the ball, and looked up. Spencer was watching him, a little curious, a little intense. Brendon bit his lower lip, hard, because the only other option was to touch it or lick it again, which would be so obvious Spencer would laugh at him forever if he did that, but that might not be so bad, really, if there was more kissing to go along with the laughing, and the next time Brendon was totally going to participate too, it wasn't fair to make Spencer do all the work, and it's not like Brendon had meant to, he was just so _surprised_ and oh god, what if Spencer thought Brendon didn't want--

Brendon swung the putter without even glancing down.

The ball rolled down the fake turf and dropped into one of the PVC holes. Brendon heard it rattle and echo around, watched Spencer look down as it came out below.

Spencer's mouth dropped open in surprise. "I don't believe it."

"What?" Brendon asked. "How did I do?"

When Spencer looked up and met Brendon's eyes, he was smiling again. "Hole-in-one, dude. Hole-in-fucking-one."


End file.
